James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

CG Art

Contact

or by email:gurneyjourney (at) gmail.comSorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.

Permissions

All images and text are copyright 2015 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.

However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.

27 comments:

I agree. with Jbyrd--I'm wearing out my copy of Color and Light referring to this page and that--it's helped me. A lot.And it's not on the list, but I found Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain helpful, years ago.

Now I voted for "An Atlas of Animal Anatomy for Artists by W. Ellenberger et al." but my MOST favourite and helpful book is "Die Gestalt des Menschen" by Gottfried Bammes. To bad that there is not an english version of it (I think that it is possibly the reason that nearly nobody knows it).

These are great suggestions, thanks, but I had to leave out Schmid and Betty Edwards because their books aren't more than 50 years old. I know it's a bit arbitrary, but I wanted to focus on the older tomes. Bammes unfortunately didn't come up in the preliminary round of nominations.

Its not in print, and may be, oh,, a tad racist, but Andrew Loomis'/ "Fun With a Pencil" is probably the best beginner's book to instill confidence and get peopel to draw for theri on amusement and motivation, later slipping in sound fundamentals. First published in 1937.

How I paint a picture by Jon Witcomb. Advance painting course from Famous Artist School. This course was an extension to the Famous Artist Course but was not popular. So they stop producing the course. Norman Rockwell praised him for his beautiful work. Some guy had it on ebay but he wouldn't sell it to me as the reserve was not met. AGH! Regards Henry Fong

I'm also missing the Bammes on the list. I do read German, so I've got it easy, but I've always found even just his (tons of) illustrations much more concise and illuminating than any other anatomy book I've looked into, including Loomis and Bridgeman.

Also, Robert Henri, 'The Art Spirit'. I sometimes feel like Hawthorne, Nicolaides and Henri are in a very lively dialogue, sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing, thus forcing you to think for yourself, but always interesting and enlightening.

I like how loomis organizes drawing into "the five C's and the five P's" in his bookSuccessful Drawing. So i voted for that.

I find bridgeman, vanderpool and Speed hard to get into compared to loomis. Bridgemans drawings are quite abstract so it's hard to make out what is going on, as for vanderpool and speed i think thier writing style is little old fashioned.

What do bridgeman, vanderpool and Speed ofer that Loomis doesn't? I'd like to be convinced to give them another try!

Rich--There were several treatises on perspective and paint chemistry in the Renaissance, and there's Leonardo. In the early 1800s, romantic tourism encouraged a spate of books for artists, including those by Ruskin, Durand, and Harding.

Iliya, if you like controlled realism, I'd recommend Arthur Guptill's "Color in Sketching and Rendering."

Ken, I like Bridgman for solid, muscular form, and Vanderpoel for tonal thinking and grace. Though Loomis deserves his first place position.

Oona, thanks for mentioning Henri. His book is a fire-up.

Dash, I only left out Hamm because no one nominated him, but I recommend his books on figure and animal drawing--lots of practical tips.

Anon, I've got most of those FAC master courses in photocopy form, and I agree, they're wonderful because they allow each instructor to unfold his own approach.

you're missing: http://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-Invention-Michael-Hampton/dp/0615272819 Figure Drawing Design and Invention by Michael Hampton and the greatest book ever: Die Gestalt des Menschen by Gottfried Bammes, which is the greatest life drawing book that has ever been printed.

Jon and Blake, thanks for mentioning those books, which are great. Please remember this list can't be totally comprehensive. Hampton's book isn't included because it's too recent (I'm looking for classic books older than 50 years), and I don't believe Bammes was nominated by the commentators on the first round. We can do other lists in the future.

Yeah, I know it can't be in the list, Jim, I just wanted to say Hampton is great - I mean, I've ordered the Bammes seeing as people above say it's worth it.

I've looked up some in the list on Amazon - the Fawcett looks good - the problem is the list is long and I have the feeling many of the books are somewhat unfamiliar - we're all voting for Loomis because not only is it good, but his books are the ones we all know!

Tim, good questions. A couple thoughts:1. You can do the rough block-in just transparently enough to be able to see the drawing underneath. That's one of the reasons guys like Cornwell reinforced the drawing in India ink.2. It's OK to obliterate parts of the drawing, especially if you can keep a separate copy. You can find them again.3. The "cartoon" doesn't have to be too laborious. It's a map, not a rendering. It's the placement and major shapes that matter. You can find the small details in the paint.4. Plenty of painters do all their construction in the paint and never do a detailed prelim drawing. It can work that way, too. That's how I do all my plein air landscape painting.